


Dig up my love

by z_grxzer_txzier_123



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie has a big secret, Gay Richie Tozier, Homophobic Language, Internalised Homophobia, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Teenage reddie, adding tags along as i go lol, richie and bev are best friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26582296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/z_grxzer_txzier_123/pseuds/z_grxzer_txzier_123
Summary: Richie isn’t happy, just like every other teenager.He spends his time sitting on a little bench in the centre of a graveyard, he’s been doing this ever since his father died 4 months ago.Until a boy arrives ,who Richie hasn’t seen before in his life, with scruffy, brown hair and a petite figure. Perfect.
Relationships: Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

The breeze blew into Richie’s face, his long curls being forced to show the full features of his face. His eyes longing over to the field behind the graveyard, just a fence away, and relaxed as there was nothing but peace and quiet. 

Maybe he shouldn’t be spending so much time in the graveyard, the losers had been telling him that it would be best to stay at home more often to be with his mom. Richie would always say ‘my mom has my aunt to keep her happy, now i have this place’ and the losers would just give him a sympathetic smile and nodded. 

Besides, he couldn’t deal to spend all his time at home. He did it enough whenever he had to eventually go there to sleep, but all he noticed was that Went’s laugh wasn’t there to make him smile like it used to. 

Stupid.

As Richie continued to stare at the view in front of him, he heard footsteps behind him. He knew who it was, and he really had the urge to just yell ‘just fuck off, Red’ until he felt a gentle hand lay on his shoulder from behind. 

He no longer wanted her to go and leave him in peace, he just relaxed as Beverly rubbed her thumb in circles on his shoulder. 

“I knew you’d be here”, she finally spoke. 

Richie closed his eyes. “Ain’t no surprise,” he lightly chucked back. “You should know that by now, Ringwald.” 

He heard her laugh from behind, and moments later, heard her shuffle beside him as she took a seat on the bench as well. “You know, you really do need to get a haircut, it’s so much fuckin’ longer than mine.” 

Went always complained about his hair. 

‘You know, you really do need a haircut soon,’ Wentworth had said, his face hidden behind the newspaper. ‘Although, not too short. Don’t think i’d be able to get used to you with short hair,’ he would add with a chuckle. Richie would laugh too.

But now, it was Beverly saying this. Of course it was Beverly, always looking out for him. 

“Of course it’s fuckin’ longer than yours, look how short yours is,” Richie spoke as he turned to her with a smirk crawling on his face. “Although, you look pretty fucking good with that hair.” 

“Wow, really appreciate.” She giggled and the curly haired boy began to quietly laugh as well. 

“No problem, m’lady. Now, maybe i should deserve a kiss for such an honorabel compliment.” Hé made kiss sounds as he edged towards her slowly, only to be slightly pushed away with a laugh. And that’s how it always was, them joking away, just how Richie loved it. 

He knew he’d have to go soon though, the sky was slightly turning dark as he looked up. It was getting windy too, always did when it got late so Richie picked up his jacket from beside him and shrugged it on. 

Beverly followed him as he stood -in silence- and they immediately found the path to walk through to get to their parked bikes. 

Beverly was the first one to speak as they picked up their bikes, almost too quiet that Richie couldn’t hear her. “You know, Stan and Bill are really worried about you being here all the time.” 

Richie rolled his eyes, she saw and he immediately felt bad. He knew they were only trying to look out for him, but he could look out for himself. Just. Fine. 

“I’m fine, Bev,” he spoke back. “Really, i am.”

“Okay. Come over on Friday though? Bill and Stan are gonna be there and- and we really wanted to just have a fun night with all of us together.” 

Richie smirked as he sat down onto his bike, ready to ride off on the opposite way from her. “Sure. Oh my god, please say we can watch ‘The Goonies’!”

“I thought you already watched it, though?” 

“Ages ago, i can’t remember shit that happens in it!”

“But-“

“Tut, tut, tut,” he interrupted and clapped his hands together loud and clear. “Goonies it is, tell the others!” 

And he rode off with a smile, looking back once to see Bev still watching him with a playful smile. 

He loved that girl so much, not in that way though. He’s always wondered why. Even though she was pretty, funny, and very fucking cool. But he still didn’t see himself in a relationship with her. 

It didn’t matter though. 

He didn’t want to ruin their relationship, that’s all he knows for sure. 

———————

Richie quietly crept up the steps on his front porch, trying not to cause too much noice in case Maggie had fallen asleep on the couch or something. 

He fumbled with the keys in his hands for a moment before finally finding the right one and unlocking the door, entering his house. 

The house was clean, smelt like Christmas. Richie already knew why, his aunt would always bring candles with different scents, Richie kind of enjoyed coming home and smelling a different scent every time. 

“Mom?” 

He turned down the hallway, checking the couch but only seeing his aunt passed out with a large blanket covering her. She was snoring, loud. 

“Richie?” It was his mom, she appearing from the kitchen with a relieved smile. “Thank god, you’re just in time.” 

“Time for what?” He dropped his keys on the table, as well as his jacket. 

She smiled once again, this time quickly reaching out for something in the kitchen. It was soup, vegetable soup. “Dinner, dear. Your aunt unfortunately was too sleepy to be lucky enough to try some fresh, but luckily you are!” 

Richie smiled and stepped forward to wrap his long arms around her waist. “Thanks mom.” 

———————

The soup was nice, nice enough to make Richie fall asleep almost instantly that he got into bed. 

That was good though, because he woke up in the morning ready to start school. He got up almost instantly after Maggie woke him up. He done his usual morning routine, only taking 30 minutes to get ready before grabbing his jacket and heading out to school. 

School wasn’t too bad, besides from the fucking people who still took the piss. 

The nicknames like ‘four-eyes’ had now became less popular as he was now used to wearing contacts more often, and his glasses didn’t make his eyes look 10x more bigger than they actually were. 

He rode to school quickly, ready to meet with Stan and Bill outside of school next to the bike rail. Beverly always hung out with Ben in the library before period 1 started, which was understandable. Obviously Mike couldn’t meet him, he was still homeschooled but they did meet occasionally when he didn’t have too much farm work to do. 

As Richie turned a corner and got in view of the front of the school, he noticed Stan and Bill already chatting at the bike rail. It looked as if Stan was showing Bill something inside his bird book, Richie couldn’t blame him as he would always interrupt Stan whenever he spoke about birds. Sometimes there was an accepting, sometimes. Not now though. 

“Hey there, Billy boy,” he yelled as he jumped off his bike and made his way towards them. He turned to look at Stan. “Hello Urine, i see you were busy showing Bill your very interesting book.” 

Richie was smirking as Stan huffed and shoved the book in his backpack, Bill hiding in a laugh while he did so.

“Really Rich, the conversation was quite interesting until you showed up,” Stanley spoke, a hint of a small smile hiding behind his grumpy face. 

“Yeah, yeah. I was just saving Big Bill from the boredom.” He made sure to stretch out the word ‘boredom’ as his eyes moved from Stan to Bill. 

“Actually, it wuh-was quite interest-ting,” Bill spoke up. 

Richie made sure to mouth ‘liar’ to Bill straight after, receiving a roll of his eyes and a huff from Stan. 

The three of them continued chatting for about 10 minutes before they heard the bell to alarm them for 1st period. 

Richie had maths first, Ben was in this class (they were both quite smart on this subject) while the others had god knows what. 

2nd period was History, then obviously break, and then Media, and then Science, and then Spanish last. His school day was boring, there wasn’t even any interaction with any dickheads. 

Bowers and Hockstetter were both suspended for a few weeks since a few days ago, so obviously Belch and Victor weren’t starting any huge fights or getting themselves into too much trouble. Richie even wondered sometimes if Henry would be annoyed that they would beat someone up without having him watching. 

Fucking psychopath. 

Richie was in the middle of putting his Science book and essentials into his locker before getting scared the shit out of by the one and only.. Beverly Marsh. 

She was leaning against the locker next to his, a smirk stuck on her face as she watched him trying to fit his Science book in. 

“What,” he finally spoke as he turned to her. 

Then, her excitement showed. “Guess what just fuckin’ happened in my History class with Josh Barrat!” 

“What?”

“So, i was just sitting while writing my work, minding my own business, and fucking Josh starts fucking kicking my chair being the annoying bastard he is..” Richie continued to finish with his locker as she carried on with the story. “So i look back and ask him what his fucking problem is, and then he just throws a screwed piece of paper at me..”

“Did the paper say anything?” Curiosity had finally gotten to him. 

“It fucking said ‘you’re a SLUT that boys only use for her tits’ and when i say that i turned around and gave him a slap to the cheek, i mean a hard slap that made it fucking red for all of lesson!” 

“Holy shit, Marsh! Did the teacher catch you?”

“Nope,” she proudly replied, popping the ‘p’. “I just said that i accidentally wacked my hand on the table and Josh didn’t say anything, until when i was leaving class. Said he was gonna get me back for it, i’d like to fuckin’ see him try.” 

The next 10 minutes was just Richie and Bev messing around about the Josh situation, taking the piss out of his terrible sense in style and his absolute terrible hair. 

The two of them left school, Richie following Bev until they got to the car park. 

“Shit! I forgot my aunt was picking me up,” she spoke as he threw her cigarette on the floor and put it out with her boot. She turned to Richie. “I’m going shopping with her, i would invite you but-“

“Not really my idea of fun,” he finished for her, smiling when she began to smile and nod. 

She left him to walk home, excited to get get home and lay in bed after a boring day of school. 

—————— 

Richie had gotten home to bottles of vodka on the sofa, beside his aunt and mother. They looked a little out of it, not too much for Maggie to completely not realise that he had just arrived back from school. 

“Richie, dear! You’re home!” 

He was about to throw her a confused look at why she’s surprised by that, but then realised that it was usual for him to spend his after school hours out somewhere (mostly the graveyard). 

“Yeah, decided i wanted to come straight home today,” he mumbled as he went to walk past her. 

Maggie then grabbed his shoulder gently and smiled at him. “I’m sorry about the mess, me and your aunt were just itching for a time to let go and maybe have some fun. I really don’t like having you here while i’m drunk, dear.” 

Richie waited for her to finish, only to realise that she has and is basically saying she wants him to go elsewhere. 

“God, i feel like such a horrible mother right now,” she muttered as Richie stayed silent. 

But Richie understood. Maggie didn’t like Richie being there while she was drunk, she didn’t explain why and Richie still understood anyway. He also understood that she wanted to maybe have fun at a time like this, escape the real world just for one night. And he really didn’t want to stop that, especially when they’ve already started. 

“It’s fine, mom,” he finally spoke and smiled up at her. “Ill go, i honestly wanted to anyways.” It was a lie, maybe. “Enjoy your time, i understand.”

“Are you sure, dear?” She rubbed circles into his shoulder with her thumb with a relaxing speed. “Me and your aunt could do it another time-“

“No, honestly,” Richie interrupted as he grabbed the keys back from the table. “Ill go out for a bit, you deserve this.”

Maggie just nodded and smiled at him, before planting a soft kiss to his cheek. “I love you, Richie.”

“I love you too, mom.” 

——————

Richie already knew where to go when he picked up his bike and rode off down the road. He picked up his speed when he got further towards the graveyard and passed many turns. Maybe he could speak to dad for a while.

——————

“It’s fine though, mom deserves an escape from the real world.. I do too sometimes, but i have my friends to thank for helping me with doing so..” 

Richie was kneeled in front of Went’s grave, his eyes stinging red and tears rolling down his cheeks and landing into his jeans. 

He’d been there for around 30 minutes, talking to his dad’s grave while he let his eyes tear up over and over again. He spoke to Wentworth about Beverly sticking up for herself to Josh (he always thought Beverly was brave), he spoke about him and the losers were going to watch his favourite movie tomorrow night, he then finished with speaking about Maggie. 

“I understand when she said about not wanting me there to see her drunk, she’s trying to look out for me but—“

There was a noise that made Richie’s mouth zip shut. He stayed silent for a moment, waiting for another noice to come front behind him. Nothing, until he suddenly heard the faint breathing of something from not far behind him. 

This then made him instantly stand up and whip his body around, expecting to see some old man with an axe who was waiting for the right moment to kill Richie. 

But.. Woah. 

Richie suddenly relaxed when that wasn’t anything close to who was standing behind him. 

There wasn’t an old man, only a short boy who stood awkwardly in front of him. Richie’s first thought was that the boy was cute, but then he instantly shook that out of his mind. 

The boy was around 5,3 or 5,4, he had short and brown hair, freckles covering his cheeks and nose, his hands were awkwardly fumbling with the hem of his red polo shirt. Richie then noticed a slight bruise on his neck, he thought for a second if he had maybe been choked by some dickhead or something. He definitely wasn’t going to ask that to a boy who had just been watching him cry to his dead dad’s grave. 

“Er, are you like- alright?” Richie wasn’t sure why he was so awkward, but the boy seemed pretty awkward too, or he seemed surprised by the question. 

The small boy hesitated for a moment before responding. “Me?” 

Richie let out an awkward laugh at the boys response, he looked quite confused which Richie wasn’t quite sure why. Richie should be the confused one. “Yes, you. You’re the only one here.” He waved his hand around the empty graveyard around them, the boy looked around after. 

“Oh, well i- i was just walking around and then i saw you and—“

“And decided to listen to me talk to my dad?”

The boy’s eyes widened a little, before he looked sympathetic as his eyes darted to the floor. “Sorry, i didn’t mean to.” 

Richie then felt a wave of guilt wash through him, he didn’t mean to sound so mean. Maybe the boy was just trying to find a grave, and stumbled across Richie. “It’s- it’s fine, sorry for soundin’ so mean. My big mouth opens at the worst of times.” 

“It’s okay..” 

It was awkward for a moment, just himself the boy standing there having no clue what to fucking do. Richie just felt rude to leave, and he was getting pretty fucking bored of waiting in silence, so he broke the silence. 

“What’s your name?” 

The boy looked up and once again, hesitated before answering. “Eddie.” 

“Eddie what?”

“None of your business.” 

Richie let out a laugh at how angry Eddie got by one little thing. “Alright, alright.”

“What’s your name then?”

Eddie looked less hesitant to speak now, and that made Richie happy. Maybe if Eddie liked to come to the graveyard, they could come together. Sit in silence together or talk about stuff together, because none of the losers liked to do that in the graveyard like him. 

“Richie Tozier is my name, and doing voices is my game.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW.. there is some homophobic kind of language in this scene...i done bill dirty, sorry://

Richie wasn’t sure why he was spending his time talking to this stranger instead of getting his stuff ready for the sleepover but he didn’t want to leave now.

The two of them had been talking for around 30 minutes. At first, Eddie’s voice was very quiet and shy in a way, but after time he seemed to get more comfortable.

Richie had always been comfortable with him from the start that they both sat together on the bench. He don’t have a problem with talking to people he weren’t close with, he normally just said whatever his mind wanted him to, no matter how stupid it was or not.

Well, that was what he had to go through with his ADHD anyways.

They were talking about casual stuff to start off with like their favourite things to do, if they went to the graveyard often (Eddie stiffened at that question but Richie didn’t think much of it), and now they were on the subject of their family.

Richie was in the middle of his sentence, he was talking about how close him and his mother was and was purposely avoiding anything about his dad.

“-and then, she just fucking ignored answering the question as if she was keeping a surprise.. Turns out, she just fuckin’ forgot about dinner and had to quickly run down town to get the food!” 

Eddie let out a laugh, slight dimples showing up and his nose crinkled up.Your mom seems like a nice woman.

“‘Woman’, why you so fuckin’ posh man. Richie barked out a laugh.

“I’m not sure”.

He continued to smirk at him. “Well, how about you? Whats your family like?”

If Richie thought that Eddie stiffened at the question earlier, he defiantly did now. His mouth zipped shut and he kept his eyes forward, his hands awkwardly sitting at his side.

He then let out a shaky breath. “My parents- uhm, they are just normal parents.”

Richie nodded. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed. He smiled then, a wide smile as he turned to Richie as if he was excited to say the next thing. “My mom always takes me places, we are very close.. Like you and your mom.” He took a pause and turned back to look at the horizon. “My dad is always at work, but when he comes home, hes really funny. Makes me laugh a lot.”

Richie smiled at that. Opened his mouth, then closed, then opened again. “My dad was also very funny, got me into my amazing voices.”

“I wouldn’t say amazing,” he giggled, only for a second, before his face turned more serious. “Sorry about your dad..”

“It’s cool.”

There was silence again. Not an uncomfortable silence though, they both just decided the conversation was finished with. Richie turned to look at Eddie after a minute or so, his eyes quickly dipping to look at the purple on Eddie’s neck before quickly turning up to have eye contact. He instantly felt bad once he realised Eddie noticed that he looked down, the small boy leaning his chin on his knees to cover his neck was what made it obvious that he saw.

“How comes i’ve never seen you here before?”

Eddie had a poker face, not that Richie knew. “Oh, i don’t know. Maybe i just come here different times than you.”

“Yeah, when do you like to come here and relax then?”

“Oh- err, i guess i sometimes come like- like in the middle of the day.. I’m homeschooled, yeah..”

Richie suddenly understood everything. “Oh! That makes sense!”

“Yeah..”

“But how come—“

“I gotta get going,” Eddie suddenly spoke, voice higher than expected. “Just- gotta get home to my parents, it’s getting late.” He pointed up at the darkening sky, Richie looked up and nodded.

“Same, i can walk you back if you like?”

“Sorry but, we only just met and— and i don’t really feel safe letting a stranger walk me home if that’s.. Okay?”

Richie suddenly understood and cursed himself for sounding like such a suspicious nonce. He immediately nodded and agreed with Eddie, letting himself leave Eddie at the bench. He supposed it would feel safer for Eddie for Richie to leave first, so he did so and made his way to his own house in a rush.

Before he left, he wouldn’t stop remembering how he looked back at the bench, seeing Eddie’s petite body sitting there innocently. His knees still brought up to his chin, his chestnut-brown hair being blown around in the wind, still admiring the view.

Something in that view of Eddie caused butterflies in his stomach. He immediately left after that, forcing himself to turn away and rush home.

On the way back, he thought of Amy Grove at school, her running in her tight pe shorts and shirt in the gym hall. He imagined himself finding her getting changed in the girls locker room, on her own, and being able to do more than look at her.

He didn’t get any excited feeling, not even butterflies in his stomach, but forgot about it as he reached his house finally.

——————

Richie spent the last 30 minutes packing his bag for the sleepover with the losers. All of them were going to be there, Mike was able to come after calling up Bev yesterday and explaining how his grandfather let him have a day off. Bev did invite Ben to come, but he wasn’t able to from the amount of revision he had to do for a test on Monday.

He was in the middle of making his way up the road at the moment, his backpack slightly falling on his back, and his hair blowing in his face every second. 

Soon enough, he arrived at Bill’s house. He knocked once, twice, and a third time until he heard footsteps from the other side of the door. He could hear the slight sound of laughter from inside, he guessed it was the losers from Bill’s basement.

The door opened eventually, Bill’s mother being the one to greet him in. “Why hello Richie! I wasn’t sure if you was coming or not tonight.”

Richie gave an awkward laugh. “Yeah, i’m a bit later than the others..”

“Well come in, come in,” she spoke as she stood to the left to let him through. Richie walked in and heard the door close behind him, ready to head down to the basement before Sharon’s voice behind him. 

“All the boys are down there, there should be pizza arriving soon,” she spoke with a smile. “You like pizza, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, thank you.” 

“Good, good.” 

It was a bit awkward, so Richie just let out a quiet ‘thank you’ before rushing down the basement stairs and getting the view of the losers huddled together on the two sofas. Bev spotted him first.

“Richie! You’re here, why the fuck did you take so long?”

He just shrugged, throwing down his bag and taking a seat between Stan and Mike. “I don’t know, but i’m here now so..”

Bev and Bill just laughed a little, Stan didn’t seem too bothered as he was too busy watching whatever shit was on the TV, and Mike was just smiling as he joined in on the conversation between the four of them.

—————— 

It had been around an hour or two, the empty pizza box was in the centre of the room, the 5 of them all spreader around, the room filled with laughter. 

“What the f-f-fuck,” Bill wheezed. “Jason really tried yuh-to kiss you?!”

Stan blushed and looked away, laughing still along with Bill and the others. “Yeah, i guess.”

“I knew he wuh-was queer!”

The laughter was slightly dying down now, the group were talking about how Victor was beaten up by a kid called Jason after Stan was being cornered by him outside the boy’s bathroom.

The group were laughing by how Victor ran off, obviously embarrassed by getting beat up, but obviously the losers found it funny by how much of a prick he was. Somehow though, the conversation went on to how Jason tried to kiss Stan while trying to fix up his bloody nose, which Bill found pretty interesting to talk about. 

Richie watched as Bill explained why he knew Jason was gay, even though he wasn’t out.

“Well i mean, you’ve heard the rumours, ruh-r-right?” The group nodded quite hesitantly. “Well, the way he acts so duh-defensive if you say s-stuff to him about it, it’s obvious he has int-t-ernalized homophobia.”

It was quiet, Richie could sense the awkward tension around the room.

He took a look, seeing Mike’s furrowed brows and judging face at Bill, but not saying a word. Stan kept a casual face the whole time, and once he looked over at Bev, she was clapping her hands together to get everyone’s attention. 

“Well, even if he is gay, or bi, it has nothing to do with us,” she spoke. “But to be honest, i don’t wanna be spending my night talking about some rumours about some kid, let’s play a game.”

That seemed to get the group’s smiles again, the giggling started again while everyone got into a circle. 

Bev took a seat next to Richie, leaning her head on his shoulder while listening to Mike speak.

“We should play truth or dare.”

“There’s like no dares though,” Stan spoke up. “No fun ones anyways.” 

“Just because there’s no girls for you to kiss Staniel,” Richie smirked, turning back to Mike. “Although, there’s no fun dares if there’s no girls that could get dared to kiss me or whatever, even Bev can’t give me a smooch as she’s too busy with Haystack!”

“Beep, beep Richie,” filled the room, along with laughter.

After a minute or so, Stan requested just 21 truths, where one person asks another person a truth, then that person asks someone else, and so on. The group seemed to be fine with that, Richie was just happy that they finally changed the subject of Jason being rumoured gay. It made him feel so judged, even though they were saying this stuff about someone else. 

It was Bev’s turn first. “Okay, Stan,” she decided. “How many girls have you kissed?”

“Oh fuck you.” 

Richie grinned at him. “Sorry, what was that? I don’t think i heard your answer correctly..” 

Stan scowled at him and the others (who were busy giggling) before answering. “Only 1.”

“I remember your first kuh-kiss,” Bill laughed. “Patty from the p-p-play!”

Stan ignored him, rolling his eyes and turning to face Richie. “Your turn now. Who was the last girl you liked?”

—————— 

Eddie sitting on the bench, knees brought up to his chin, chestnut-brown hair blowing in the wind, admiring the view in front of him.

—————— 

Richie just laughed while smirking. “I don’t fucking know whether or not the girls i’ve spoke to are ones i’ve liked, or ones i’ve wanted to fuck with so..” 

Stan rolled his eyes, scoffing. “Who’s the last girl you got close with?”

“I guess.. Mavis?” 

“What did you think of when you was speaking to her?”

Richie thought for a moment, trying to remember what he actually thought, only to just remember fuck all. “I remember looking at her tits and thinking ‘fuck me’,” Richie finally responded with a chuckle. 

Beverly let out a laugh. “You didn’t like her, you’re just a horndog.” Bill and Mike let out a laugh whereas Stan huffed, hiding his smile and trying his best not to laugh. 

“You’re impossible Rich.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve got a lot planned for this lol...
> 
> also, richie is a very gullible boy.

**Author's Note:**

> this story is going to have so much drama,, please leave kudos if you enjoy so far.
> 
> i’ll try update as much as i can, although i do have school.


End file.
